I'm lost with oil!!!

[Karls Mum]

Hi everyone,
Sorry to bring up the oil debate again, but I've been reading the posts and am more confused than ever! I feed mine on veg oil, for coat and condition. They were on Linseed but it was suggested to me to swap to regular old veg oil as it is cheaper. Is this right? Will it do the same job?
Also, is veg oil (or any oil for that matter!) heating? I know its a form of slow release energy, but I really could do with avoiding any excess 'fizzy' energy in my boy, as hes an excitable little monkey as it is!
Sorry to be a bit thick about this, but have just got myself confused!:o

[Jessey]

OK as I understand it, veg oil is fine for coat and condition, it is non-fizzy slow release energy so shouldn't hype up your horse (this is what I use mostly).
Corn oil is like the next step up, gives a little more energy but is still slow release.
Linseed is about the best oil to feed, but it is quite high energy (we feed it to endurance horses to give enough energy when competing, this is because they physically can't manage to eat enough hard feed but oil doesn't take much to eat/digest so is a more efficent energy source) Linseed (aka Flax) when given in small ammounts is very helpful for coat, condition and joints and shouldn't fizz up your horse but given in larger quantities it gives a good energy slow release source.

I think of it like Tesco's own chocolate (veg oil) then Tesco Finest chocolate (soya oil) and A specalist Chocolate like Lindt (linseed oil), all basically the same thing but different grades :D

You can feed up to about 15% of the daily hard feed as oil, but over about 8% when adding it our horses don't like it and we then buy stuff like AlfaA Oil as it already has oil in it then we add our 8% on top of that to increase the intake.

Here is a page that tells you a bit about the rations needed to get various results etc http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/resources/livestock/horses/ag558-7.html

Last winter I had 3 horses on veggie oil, Phoenix our 14hh 30 something year old cob got 2 cups a day (tea cups), Bo my 15.1hh 7yo Arab xTb got 1/2 a cup and Jess 14.2 2yo QH got about 1/2 cup, They all got a good basic ration but I gave them this to help with holding weight (the two younger ones got no grain feeds at all) and also to give nice coats.

Hope that helps.

J x

[Karls Mum]

Thank you thats so much clearer! Good chocolate analogy too! I get told so many conflicting things that its hard to keep track of them sometimes! Will keep on with the oil, and see how he gets on. Thanks for your advice.